Review of The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher

Welcome to a future where water is more precious than gold or oil—and worth killing for

Vera
and her brother, Will, live in the shadow of the Great Panic, in a
country that has collapsed from environmental catastrophe. Water is
hoarded by governments, rivers are dammed, and clouds are sucked from
the sky. But then Vera befriends Kai, who seems to have limitless access
to fresh water. When Kai suddenly disappears, Vera and Will set off on a
dangerous journey in search of him-pursued by pirates, a paramilitary
group, and greedy corporations. Timely and eerily familiar, acclaimed
author Cameron Stracher makes a stunning YA debut that's impossible to
forget.

The Water Wars is exactly what I have been looking for in a Dystopian novel.It had everything - the world building was solid and everything made perfect sense. The people of that world acted how they should - some meek and compliant, some unwilling to accept the large corporations taking control of the water supplies. There was little to no romance, which felt really refreshing AND... the story was completely wrapped up in one book. Authors take note - this is how a real Dystopian novel should be done.

The story had a strong adventure feel to it as Vera is chasing after Kai, to try and rescue him and his father. Bit of a strange thing for a young girl to do, but she did it marvelously. I loved the brother and sister team that was Will and Vera. It was nice that the heroine wasn't stuck by herself for once!

There definitely was room for a sequel, but at the same time, it doesn't need one either. We can all imagine what might happen after in our heads, without wondering what happened after THAT cliffhanger, like with the rest of the new Dystopian novels. If Cameron ever writes more YA, I'll be getting copies for sure!

4 comments:

I was surprised to read the blurb for this one and realize that it's a different book from Not a Drop to Drink, which is coming out in 2013 and sounds pretty much the same...even uses the 'water is more precious than gold' line. Of course, that's more of a criticism on Not a Drop to Drink than this as it's been out for a year!

I am with you that more dystopias need to be standalones, and I'd like/read more if they were. Most of them get drawn out into trilogies really unnecessarily and are weakened as a result. This one does contain a character named Kai though, which I'm ridiculously sick of (second only to characters named Finn), so I should wait a while before I try to read it.